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and labor savings I get with no-till -it would be a lot more difficult to doboth.

I was a farmer before the HGBFoundation was established in 1999.Following college, I operated a 400-acre eastem Nebraska farm owned bymy father. Later, I served on the boardof commissioners for Douglas County,Neb., - my home county - and thenworked in management for ADM andthe GSI Group. In 1992, I bought 740acres in central Illinois after acceptingajob atADM.

I first started exploring the powerof photography while shooting pic-tures of crops and wildlife on ourNebraska farm and on trips to foreigncountries I took as a young man. Overtime, and through a lot of trial anderror, I advanced my skills and even-tually recorded wildlife images aroundthe world. Today, I use photographyprimarily to demonstrate the harshreality of world conditions.

IJAI}I,Y NO-TIT,LWhen I first moved to lllinois, most

of my new neighbors used some formof conventional tillage - and moststill do. Everything I read indicatedno-till was a natural fit for the rolling,clay soils on my f'arm. Nearly 20 yearslater, I'm confident turning to no-tillwas the right decision.

This year', we added another 500acres of lighter, blacker sr-ril to theoperation and have starled the tran-sition of this land to no-till as well.Drain tile is among several plannedimprovements.

Because of Foundation demands,I spend up to 8 months a year out ofthe country; thus, my farming hours

are somewhat limited. But I'm alwayshome for the crucial planting and har-vest chores. While I find the quiet com-fort of the tractor and combine cabsrelaxing - and fun! - there is also alot at stake during these operations.

Hiring a custom applicator forspraying and fertilizer applicationfrees travel time during the summer.In any case, owning equipment forthese jobs doesn't pencil out for oursize operation.

A no-till planter is yet anotherstory. The amazing technology avail-able today makes it possible to getover the ground quickly and create anear-perfect seed environment for fastgermination and uniform emergence,even in tough residue. This is abso-lutely critical in no-till systems.

silltllltlllt) P lltil'Directly after harvest, we take our

first swing at corn-stalk residue withone pass of an Aerway vertical tillagetool. The Aerway creates a three-wayaction that preps the fleld for a betterspring seedbed environment.

First, it penetrates the soil, reduc-ing surface compaction. Second, theAerway breaks up and incorporatesa portion of the crop residue. Hnally,it aerates the soil and improves waterretention.

I don'|. lnow how much yield boost,if any, we're getting from the Aerwaybecause I've never done side-by-sidecomparisons. However, I can reporthaving had few problems maintainingproper seed depth and placement invarying spring field conditions wherewe ran the machine.

While the use of anhydrous iunmo-nia in some ways goes against the

A no-tiller, \rtrCItrld-traveler and phllanthropi$t? FNoward tsuffet takesno-till practices to third-world countries to bring hope to the hungry.

B'11 Ho'na'rd G. BulJettas i'n[etnieued by Ron Ross

ccasionallv I 'm asked how Imanage to farm 1,400 acresand also travel up to 180,000

miles a year visit ing irnpoverishedcountries fclr the I'IGB Foundation.

The short zrnswer: I choose to do it,bec:ause c:ir<:unstan<:es have prr-rvidedme the opportunity to address se.verehunger in pla<:es like Africa and LatinAmorica.

At l,he same l,ime, I love farming.But withoul, the prr:cision ag technol-ogy available today - and the time

SHARING A PASSION. Howard Buffett( left) and his son Howard fr. shareinterest in no-t i l l practices, photog-raphy and the need to meet the fooddemands of a growing world.

N0VEMBER 2009 . c0NSERVATI0N TILLAGE GUIDE . N0-TILL FABIfrER 27

concept of "pure no-till," I haven'tfound a better way of applying nitro-gen. I apply 140 pounds of actualnitrogen as anhydrous ammonia andapply another 30 pounds as 28% liquidmixed with a pre-emergence herbi-cide.

Starter fertilizer paid off on ourNebraska farm, but when I didn'tsee much, if any, yield advantage inIllinois, I quit using it.

I have a 16-row, split-row planterfor soybeans and a new l&row planter,equipped with several no-till attach-ments, for corn. I've had good resultswith Yetter row cleaners, fluted no-till coulters, Keeton seed firmers andThompson spiked closing wheels.

John Deere's SF2 AutoTrac systemis installed in our planting tractorsand combines. The 16-row corn plant-er is equipped with John Deere's newRow Command and Swath Controlsystems. Individual clutches insidethe drive gear boxes allow automatic

engaging and disengaging ofseed flowon the go.

A lot of my fields are odd-shaped.With triple-stack corn seed hitting$300 a bag and soybeans nearing $50a unit, Row Command should pay foritself in a couple seasons by avoidingoverplanting in point and end rows.

Not all technology is that easy to

justify. It doesn't take long to wrapup $25,000 with the full SF2 system,and if you go RTK, you can easilyspend more. I'm the first to admit itwas iffy to pencil out some of myinitial technology investments when Iwas farming only 740 acres. But I willembrace anything that improves myuse of no-till.

The numbers Iook better now thatwe've expanded. For a farmer with3,000 to 5,000 acres, this technology isalmost a no-brainer.

Htss()NS LtiAlli\|il)I've got no-till fairly well figured

out on the clay soils I've farmed for 19years. Now, I'm anxious to see whathappens on the blacker soil as wetransition those fields to no-till.

I've learned that my clay can befairly forgiving, especially after sev-eral years of building up a mat ofcrop residue. While I prefer warm,dry planting conditions, I can plantinto the clays when they're sti l la little wet, if necessary. Althoughweather really made things difficultlast spring, I was still able to get in 2weeks earlier than some convention-al tillers who worked their field twoor three times following rains.

In early August, there was a dra-matic difference in uniformity andstalk height between the no-till andconventional-till fields. Gaining theextra weeks for early season growth

also meant our corn would be tas-seled and pollinated before our hot-test days.

Gene-stacked hybrids have been agood fit for our tough no-till environ-ments. This year, to get an at-homecomparison base for future seed-buy-ing decisions, I split the planter withIeading brands with similar geneticson about 120 acres. It will be interest-ing to see if we measure any signifi-cant differences at harvest.

1VHX THH HGI}FOUNDATIOI\?

When I climb into the combine atharvest-time, chances are I have justreturned from one of the more than65 countries where HGB has projects.As I look through the cab window at190- to 2OO-bushel corn and S0-bushelsoybeans, it's very difficult to makethe mental shift from where I mighthave beenjust hours or days before.

Statistics that are overwhelmingkeep running through my mind as Isteer a machine capable of shelling outas much as 20 acres of corn per hour.

Today, during the hours I harwestthousands of bushels of corn or soy-beans, 25,000 people across the worldwill die of hunger-related causes.

Half of the people in the world livefor an entire day on less than I mightspend for a Coke and a doughnut atthe local caf6 on my way to the field.

Food nroduct ion wi l l need to

NO-Tltt SETUP. Row cleaners, fluted no-till coulters, seed firmers, spiked closingwheels and leveling tines make up the no-till planting package on the row unitsof Howard Buffett's fohn Deere planter,

28 i l0-TILL FARMEn . C0NSERVATI0N TILLAGE GUIDE . N0VEMBER 2009

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increase 650/o during the next decade

- and unfortunately it can't be donein many African nations (and otherthird-world areas) with the high-input,high-yield, "two-crop monoculture"system that I myself apply in centralIllinois.

Because these events are happen-ing so far away from Illinois or wher-ever you farm, it's easy to becomenurnb to that reality. But when you seesuch tragedies a.r d photograph themclose up, as I have thousands of times,they stay etched in your mind forever.

An American farmer like you orme, 0n average, produces enough tofeed nearly 150 people for an entireyear. But the African farmer I mightsit down with is not able to feed his

compared to the only 8 or 9 monthsworth of food his 1 or 2 acres usuallyprovide.

One of the HGB Foundat ion'simmediate goals is to teach conser-vation farming, including no-till andcover-cropping systems, that can helpeliminate these "hunger periods" nowconunon between crops.

A simple but critical example ofthe basic needs of our African farm-ers involves a project HGB funds withtwo University of Illinois graduate stu-dents who are working on ways toimprove the jab planter. Used in small-scale agriculture in Africa for manyyears, farmers simply jab it into theground, spread thejaws and release asingle seed.

Typical jab planters are made ofwood and hard to use, resulting inuneven planting and user fatigue. Thestudents' new model is made of sheetmetal, holds a predetermined amountof seed, meters the seed and has aretractable tip that easily penetratesthrough cmsted soil or crop residue.

The foundation also hosted KofiBoa, a no-till expert, to visit the cam-pus and provide advice on the newplanter design.

Our goal is to help small-scalefarmers mimic the planting precisionour no-till farmers get in tough soilswith high-tech machines. We'll sup-

poft initial manufacturing and distri-bution of the planter.

Of the 65 projects HGB funded in2008, nearly half were in ag develop-ment, with about one-third focusedon clean-water projects. Just over halfof the projects are in African coun-tries, with about one-third in CentralAmerica. (Other monies fund projectsin South America, Mexico and theUnited States.) The Foundation's totalspending in 2007 and 2008 averagedabout $52 million.

We usually partner with non-gov-ernmental organizations (NGOs) onprojects that have the most promiseof success. We will provide about$20 million through the World FoodProgram next year with a new pro-gram called Purchase for Progress.Our goal is to help farmers in sevenAfrican and Central American coun-tries gain access to markets for anysu4rlus crops they manage to produce.

Two years ago, the HGBFoundat ion pledged a minimumof $14 million a year over 10 yearsto fund the Global Water Initiative(GWI). Our partners include sevenNGOs who will develop rural waterand sanitation projects in 13 CentralAmerican and African countries.

IVHT ANIIICA?Our funding decisions are based on

greatest need. Africa has the highestpercentage of agricultural populationand is the second-highest cultivatedarea in the world.

However, average cereal flelds arethe world's lowest, only half of thosein Asia or Latin America. Nearly 90%of all African farming is done withmanual labor - no machine or ani-mal power. The farmer does not ownmuch of the land, so he has no con-trol over it - thus, Iittle incentive toimprove it.

If things don't change, Africa's rain-fed crop production will drop 15%during the next 20 years. Adding tothe crisis, leadership needed to cham-pion change in Africa is sorely lacking.This is a perfect recipe for continuedchronic hunger and conflict.

Nearly three-fourths of African

own family; he is a net buyer of food.His greatest hope is that he can some-how put enough food on the table12 months of the year to provide theminimum calories needed to survive,

30 i l0- f lLL FABMEn C0NSERVATI0N TILLAGE GUTDE . N0VEMBER 2009

FEEDING KlDt. lloward Buffett scoops up a corn/soy blend at a sierra Leone school* one of many rchool feedlng projects sponsored by the World Food program.

soils have been degraded. "Slash andbum" is corrunon. As the term implies,natural nutrients are depleted, andbecause no commercial ferti l izer isavailable to rebuilcl the soils, larmersmove on, clear new ground and con-tinue the cycle of depletion. The resultis that 27 million acres of forest arecleared annually.

Poor farmers l ike these couldclearly benefit from more researchand technical suppod. Unfortunately,most global studies have focused onl'Green Revolution" high-input andhigh-yield systems. These are oftennot applicable and provide little ben-efit to farmers in many of Africa's 54countries or resource-poor farmers inCentral American nations.

A GI,IilINItllt (tF HOI'HIn some areas, conditions are slow-

ly improving, with significant thanksto our nation's food relief programs.

Our Foundation, partnering withorganizations like CARE, The U.N.'sWorld Food Program, the GWI,The International Maize and WheatImprovement Center (CIMMYI) andCatholic Relief Services can reportprogress in many countries.

No-Till Farmer readers might haveparticular interest in the results ofno-till methods (called mulching inAfrica) to improve yields and income.

What makes no-till and cover crop-ping good fits in third-world nations

is that troth are relatively simple toadopt and don't require a lot of high-tech methods. It boils down to mini-mum disturbance and building soilhealth through natural processes.

Fortunately, no-till offers benefitsalmost wherever you go, especially ifyou can get farmers to commit for 3 to

32 N0-f tLL FARMEn. C0NSERVATI0N TILLAGE

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QUALITY CHECK. Howard Buffett and U.N, World Food Program representativesreview and discuss the quality of locally produced corn in Sudan.

5 years, just like in the United States.The HGB Foundation is investing

$13.5 million partnering with CAREwith a focus on 16 no-till projectslocated in seven African nations.Improving yields with no-ti l l andcover crops, combined with new seedtechnology, can boost food produc-tion with minimal additional cost tothe farmer, a critical key in the earlystages of the projects.

Ghana farmers like Kofi, the grow-er we brought over to review the jabplanter project, have used no-till lon-ger than other African nations withdramatic results. In years of averagerainfall, no-till increased corn yields45%. No-till improved soil water reten-tion, kept planting on time and boost-ed beneficial insect populations.

It's great to hear African no-tillersbrag, "You know, my crops are betterthan that guy across the river whowon't change."

Sound familiar?

Ohl*Hr{l?M tlllsliAltcHTo accelerate research studies

more adaptable to African soils andweather, the Foundation operates a6,000-acre farm in South Africa. PennState University scientists are on the

GUIDE . N0VEMBER 2009

site to conduct critical nutrient uptakeresearch.

Third-world farmers have a crit-ical need for better, adaptable andaffordable seed. To further that cause,we fund a seed-improvement projectin partnership with CIMMYT. Maize(corn) seed from Zimbabwe is pro-duced under three of the farm's 15center pivots and distributed to deal-ers at no profit.

Other seed research at the SouthAfrican farm and other locations havea goal of developing drought-tolerantcom varieties, which can be providedwith no technology fee to small-scaleAfrican farrners.

Niliw STtitlY ctit\rTunBack in the United States, we were

excited to purchase a new Il l inoisfarrn for the HGB Foundation. We willincorporate RTK guidance while weattempt to achieve "farm-size" agro-nomic and economic data.

In one of our first studies, we'l levaluate the effect of various nutrientlevels and weed competition on GMOcorn hybrids. One l0-acre plot will getfull fertilizer rates and weed control.Another will get an herbicide only,and the third - no fertilizer or herbi-

TEACIIING TIME. Buffett explalns the process of <orn pollination to Burundi farm-e?s ae part of hls visit and demonstration on how to incorporate no-till practices.

cide. How fast will our best hybridsdeplete available nutrients and howwill yields compaxe?

We've seen a big push to use genet-ically stacked, racehorse hybrids inAfrica that are designed for high-inputsystems like we have in the centralCom Belt. If we do, we will face sig-nificant problems.

The idea of getting poor African

farmers hooked on a fossil-fuel-basedsystem without all the pieces to makeit work is a questionable strategy. Analternative is nitrogen-fixing covercrops. We'll be initiating studies onhairy vetch at the Foundation researchsite. We're looking for a cover crop wedon't have to kill with glyphosate toeliminate that expense.

I'll also be evaluating hairy vetch on

one of my own no-till fields after weharvest winter wheat next summer. Ithink U.S. fanners must also be will-ing to consider ways to reduce theirdependency on inorganic nitrogen.

The Rodale Institute has donepromising work on rolling and crimp-ing cover crops, including hairy vetch,with a front-mounted roller now man-ufactured in Pennsylvania. The onlyproblem is that six 3O-inch rows isthe typical width of available rollers.I need to figure out a way to roll andcrimp 12 or more rows at a time.

Hooking a 12- or 16-row roller tothe front end of even a large tractoris not feasible in terms of weight andbalance. A possible answer is to bal-ance the weight. Rodale has exploredthe feasibility of mounting one sec-tion of roller in front of the tractorwith the remainder mounted on thesides of the tractor, or to use a pull-type roller.

This year, we brought one of theRodale representat ives to SouthAfrica to look at starting cover cropwork there as well.

tj"s" Att) ts tlssuNTtAl.,With all the challenges I see in

impoverished countries I visit, I wouldbe remiss not to mention the tremen-dous assistance millions of people arereceiving because of the ability of theAmerican farmer to produce qualityfood in abundance.

On average, 60% of all food thatreaches these hungry nations origi-nates in the tJnited States. In manycases, our food distribution programsare the only reason the poor have anyhope at all.

However, I'm concerned that ourfarmers don't fully appreciate theimportance of the role they play inpoverty diversion and hunger reduc-tion. The message seems to have got-ten lost with all the changes that haveoccurred in the last decade.

I think if we had a real push fromthe agricultural industry - includ-ing no-ti l lers l ike you - we couldincrease food assistance even moreand reach another 20 to 50 millionpeople who need help to survive. )13

34 N0-TILL FAnMER r C0NSERVATI0N TILLAGE GUIDE . N0VEMBER 2009